Joey Hill’s Report – The Flows Dirty East Contest 2009 in Columbus, Ohio

This was the 9th annual contest at the flow and like always it was nothing short of amazing. Alienation riders were in full effect. Joey Hill, Nick Digeroloma, Ricky Moseley and Zack Gerber were all there to represent. Nick D. got hurt in practice slipping a hand on a tuck air, casing coping and flipping the bars to bust his chin open. He was alright and bandaged it up and still rode in his run. He is a machine. He was riding so well in prelims doing stuff like suicide no handers to tucks, wall ride to slow bars, 360 oppo down whips, you name it. He was killing it and mid run he tried to bar to whip the big box and didnt quite land right on the pedals and got tossed to the ground again hitting his chest and head causing a consussion. This made him have to stop riding.

Ricky Moseley somehow didn?t make it to finals. I dont understand how he didnt because he was doing his usual madness just killing it. He started off on the 2 box jumps in the last part of the rhythm doing a 3 whip straight into a 3 downwhip to a flair i think on the 8 ft. He was also killing the rest of the park doing all of the crazy tricks he does. 3 bar to tuck, tailwhips and barspins everywhere, huuuuge downside whips from the 7 ft quarter to the small box rollin like 8 ft out, it was insane. I have no clue how he didnt make it into finals but he definitely destroyed it.

Zack also killed it in prelims, qualifying in first place doing every trick in the book. 540 bars, 540 tucks, fakie to fronts, hop trucks, flairs on anything even out of the big wallride, frontied the long wedge driveway, and to top it all off he even frontied from flat down a 6 stair!! All of this said, he definitely deserved to qualify as well as he did. He was killing it and having so much fun all at once.

And Joey (myself) also rode good enough to make finals. In prelims i did things like frontie tucks, boosting tucks and slow bars on hips, double peg transfers on the big green wall,  did my 2nd 360 bar to bar and my first frontie turndown also putting some other lines together. I qualified 7th for finals .

Everyone else also killed it in the contest. Jeremiah Smith, Nick Bonner, Kevin Teets, Chris Hughes and Brian “Sped” Hinkle all stood out to me the most. Jeremiah is a robot and does about 97 tricks in one run, and they were all hard tricks ha. Nick Bonner can also do any trick, and both ways. Kevin Teets almost hit his front wheel on the rafters on the big wall ride and went faster than anyone on the course hitting huge lines. He also did a barspin off of the green wall, stupid ha. Chris Hughes did a double flip on the big box which nobody has done before. He also tried a body varial and almost got it. He also killed the rest of the park doing his usual stuff. And like always, Sped blasted some huge gaps, did a tuck off the green wall, and also did some nice lines.

Once the finals came around and was just insane like always. Zack did all of his stuff again plus some, finishing in 3rd place overall. And i did some of the same stuff again and also icepicked the big green wall again. I had a few falls in my heat but still managed to finished 6th overall. Jeremiah Smith came through with the win again, Kevin teets 2nd, Zack Gerber 3rd, Nick Bonner 4th, Glenn Johnson 5th, Joey Hill 6th, AJ Anaya 7th, Chris Hughes 8th, Alex Lanobros 9th, and Brian Hinkle 10th. After the contest was over they decided to do a best trick contest. Nick Bonner and Charlie “Monkey” Bowers both finished close but Nick took the win. Monkey did a luc-e to tooth pick on the green wall, sooo insane. And Nick Bonner won with a tooth pick to bar spin on a 5ft sub out of a steep 9ft quarter, ridiculous.

Pro day was amazing and everyone rode really well, awesome awesome day. Amateur day was on sunday, and to be honest some of it was almost like watching pro day ha. There were kids in 15 and under doing frontie tucks? it was stupid ha. 16 and up was also amazing, kids doing more fronties, flip whips, and other huge stuff around the course. The kid who won killed it. His name was Johnny and he did everything. The same wall that nick bonner did the tooth to bar, johnny did a luc-e to toothpick. He also did an over pedal to 270 on a crazy set up in the front. It was a wedge to flat to quarter to 4ft sub, and the other side was like a 7ft drop to a 5 or 6ft quarter. It was huge. He easily won amateur. So both days were amazing and Misled Clothing hooked it up as a sponsor of the contest and as a sponsor of about 4 dudes in the finals for pro. They gave out clothes to people shredding and made the contest that much better. Failure Bikes was also a sponsor of the contest, and they also had 3 riders in the finals. Matt “the beard” Bischoff was there to watch on and show me awesome videos on his phone of him and his wife haha. Thanks to Shannon and Craig at the flow for another awesome contest and providing an amazing skatepark for us to come have fun and ride at. Next year will be the 10th annual Dirty East contest, be sure to make it out because it will be a huge one.

Alienation BMX!      Joey Hill